Before Republicans get too euphoric about Sen. Dean Johnson losing his first election, as an independent thinking Republican looking at it objectively, this was more of an anti-Johnson than a pro-Gimse election.
To explain why, we can look at the Al Juhnke-Bonnie Wilhelm race. Wilhelm is at least as qualified as Gimse, yet she lost by about 10 percent. Does anyone believe that Gimse would have won if Juhnke had been his opponent? Gimse knew that his one hope to ever get elected would need to be against someone being vehemently attacked by outside forces, to detract from his own lack of experience and untested abilities. In an election night that was clearly going the way of the DFL statewide and nationally, the Johnson-Gimse contest was an anomaly.
Some will realize that booting Johnson will have virtually no effect on marriage and abortion issues, plus losing a legislator with the experience and seniority to get a lot of economic, roads, and education items done for our district. To others, nothing else mattered but to oust Johnson, because to them he would never be pro-life or pro-family enough.
But now that Larry Pogemiller, a "pro-choice liberal metro legislator," will take Dean's place as majority leader, these issues won't see the light of day. Pogemiller is the one who headed the committee that killed the marriage amendment initiative. Like it or not, the DFL Senate has the two-to-one majority power to do pretty much as they please, and they will likely be in control for a long time.
A victory is a victory, some will say, no matter how or why it is obtained, but the outcome was clearly to punish Johnson. When Gimse received less votes than Johnson in much of the district, including his home city of Willmar and two of the three counties, but still won the election, that has to be a humbling reality check.
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Four years from now, we can review if Gimse had any effect on life/marriage issues in addition to evaluating what was done for the district economically.
Rod Vlach
Willmar
